Arcade Raid! Abandoned House: Vive la France!

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to be a part of an extraordinary arcade rescue mission. This turned out to be a very memorable raid for both good and bad reasons. Nothing could have prepared us for what we found.

In short, we received a message from an English woman about two weeks ago, who informed us that she had just purchased an abandoned semi-commercial property in a small French village in Western France. On entering the property, she discovered the place was full of arcade machines from the late 70s and early 80s. Sensing they might be worth something to someone, she got in touch. The house was in a state of disrepair, and clearly hadn’t been occupied since that time.

It seems the previous owner was a restauranteur and arcade operator. He had stored the machines in the restaurant, across three floors and an outbuilding, and there they sat untouched for all this time. We didn’t have much to go on, but the few pictures she was able to send through gave us enough reasons to decide that we needed to rescue these games as soon as possible – the house was literally falling apart. The new owner had intentions to gut and renovate the place, so we had to get there quickly.

Screen Shot 2017-09-18 at 12.12.08-min — 600 miles each way? To rescue old arcade cabinets? Hell yes!

We were hesitant, as we only had a few pictures to go by, but after a bit of debate, we felt we simply had to go for it. If there’s one thing the UK arcade collector scene is good at, it’s getting organised with logistics and manpower for these sorts of things. Within 24 hours, we had commitments from 10 collectors to drive 5 Luton vans down to the place to get these cabinets out. And so, on 8th September, we set off in convoy for our 650 mile journey to Western France. First stop was the Eurotunnel.

37063485571_472dabd317_z — Our Raid convoy

37000859602_be711f21a0_z — Loading up onto the Eurotunnel

And then a further five hundred mile drive to our location. We arrived at 3.00 am and stayed at a hotel just north of the village. Three hours later, we were up, showered (well some of us were) and ready for the final push on to the destination to get cracking.

37172700295_dd853d90c5_z — We covered over 1,000 miles in just 36 hours to pull this raid off

We arrived at 8.00 am, and were greeted with a picturesque village in the middle of rural France. Local life seemed relaxed:

37033643092_1a737d9c18_z — Is there anything finer than warm fresh French baguettes in the morning? I think not

Strangely, the locals seemed to know we were coming, and we were able to get directions through the winding lanes to the building in question:

We waited for the owner to arrive so we could be let in. Peering through the windows, we got an idea of what we were up against. It was a mess in there. But we had been assured that the building had been made stable – stable enough for us to get in, and remove whatever we wanted.

The reality was this building was far from safe, and it was clear that we would be putting ourselves at a great deal of risk just to access much of what was there.

I have a ton of pictures, so I’ll try to break this down to the main areas, and give you an idea of what we found. Check the descriptions under the photos for more info:

This was the ground floor:

37172637505_b2559070fe_z — This is what greeted us when we walked in. Notice the doors hanging in mid-air above, and the bow in the ceiling. From this vantage point, you could look up right through three floors and see daylight through holes in the roof

36774889660_b5d8c2c097_z — It was immediately clear that safety was going to be an issue. Those Acro Props were supposed to be holding the ceiling up, but you can see that they had been placed on beer crates. They were completely ineffective

36774861110_b704243c5f_z — More on the individual cabs later, but you can get a sense of the age of everything. Demolition Derby, Super Road Champions and Steeplechase – all Mid/late 70s.

37172658165_7c79b5559c_z — Speak & Rescue, Grand Crash and Playtime. Nothing had been moved for 25 years

36774863240_7023a00569_z — The pile of rubble on the right is the remains of what was the ceiling above. The cab at the back there is a Demolition Derby. We got it out

37030556461_b1d44c7f76_z — Here’s the view down from the floor above. There should have been a floor/ceiling here but it was long gone

The ground floor extended to other areas; a loading bay of sorts, and an outbuilding:

36774890610_737477417e_z — A view down towards part of the loading bay area. Some gems here

36358252503_f821ed7f06_z — Two pinball machines. Nothing to be saved here

And out the back, we were able to get into an outbuilding:

37172636675_cc3ef32d8a_z — The rest of the ceiling had been removed and dumped here

36774853350_e83127922f_z — A moment’s silence please…

36358247973_b9faac388a_z — Here’s the outbuilding. A few pinball boxes, a jukebox and a couple of uprights

36774858440_034017502d_z — More pinball boxes and headers

36982982336_54afff7be8_z — A better view of the loading bay. Nice Gunfight there and several cocktail tables stacked up

36982979666_75de141e5c_z — More pin boxes and a wrecked GeeBee

37030465901_25e5573f14_z — It wasn’t pretty in this room, but that Galaxian was worth grabbing

A set of stairs in the corner of the building allowed us up to the second floor. It’s impossible to describe how unsafe it was up there. In places, the floor moved as you walked on it, and rubble would fall from the ceiling under our feet onto the ground floor below. There was one area that we just couldn’t walk on at all:

37030555931_c9d308ba77_z — A beautiful Wurlitzer Statesman jukebox. The floor could not be walked on. I didn’t tilt the camera here – that’s the angle of the floor

37000867672_e36539850a_z — The waiting room….

37000933082_68eea92214_z — Another cool looking jukebox

36982969456_94d2d1cc75_z — There was something very sad about this room. A few pins in here and a sorry-looking Crazy Kong bootleg at the back there

37000868282_5c17acfe2d_z — Gottlieb Volcano pinball. I think the playfield might need some work

36358256073_57c53dca8d_z — Probably the find of the day was this amazing Sega Jet Rocket. More on this later

36774952410_24e31f902c_z — This pile of monitor PCB chassis was in one room. Nothing here was worth saving sadly

From there, another set of stairs took you up to the loft area. Again, it is hard to get a sense for the dangers up here. But check out what we found:

36774949150_bd744fb9a3_z — For a loft, there’s a lot of daylight up here!

36982970686_542234ac61_z — More cabs in the gloom. Walking over there would be risky

36774875850_305802f096_z — A lovely Atari Gran Trak. I pushed the top, to see if it was moveable; the bottom stayed put. It was waterlogged. What you can’t see from this picture are the holes in the floor

36358262583_0ab52e426d_z — A Head-On – this was surprisingly solid

37000879932_55c37c1b56_z — An original Nutting Ricochet. It was beautiful and very rare. But check out the floor – it was completely rotten and very weak. No-one was prepared to walk on it to pull the thing out

37000924912_d86ed01a26_z — Things were more stable on this side of the loft. That’s a Breakout table. Note the old CRT

36774950910_d4dcf036a2_z — Pinball boxes. I think that coloured glass was from a jukebox

37030462991_efbcb2d9d0_z — It wasn’t all bad news. Here’s the upright Battlezone we managed to rescue from the loft

37030461981_70c912b26b_z — Note the caved in roof to the left – if nothing else, you got a nice view across the town. Straight ahead there was a Taito Safari upright, and you can just make out an original Atari Lunar Lander upright

There’s more pictures but I’ll be here all day if I keep going. Here’s a brief walk-through video that I put together on arrival. This will give you an idea of the conditions we were dealing with:

I do want to share some of the great stuff we did manage to pull from the building. We had to work quickly as we were under time pressures to get back to our booked crossing on the Eurotunnel. We quickly identified what we wanted to grab – some took more than others, but here’s a few highlights:

36982973096_631fa5def1_z — Here’s that Battlezone as we found it. Getting it down was a challenge, as we didn’t have much safe floor underfoot to move things around, but we got there

36335917514_f9758ff97d_z — Here’s a great shot of the guys getting the Battlezone down. Just steps away from potential disaster – you get a real feel for what the conditions were like.

36358288993_e5d7c1e8da_z — It is a very weird cab. Note the Asteroids buttons on the control panel. Inside is what appeared to be an original Battlezone PCB – further investigation required on this one, but it looks to be a conversion of some sort. Incredibly, this cab came with the original step!

36358305403_f86e24596c_z — Alex here was able to snag this fabulous Atari Video Pinball. Check out the amazing condition of the side art. Incredible it was found in this state considering where it had lived for the last 30 years

36358309613_2a5cf99df9_z — And this stunner: a Midway M-4 Tank upright

21462277_10155521823461422_2814569088181682100_n — Beautiful. Not many of these around. There were actually two of these, but the other was falling apart as it was moved. We managed to grab some spares though…

36983057086_8c231a72fb_z — Here’s my swag from the raid. An original Atari Steeplechase! It’s got damage (caused by falling masonry) but should restore OK

36391493463_87f663552a_z — Couldn’t resist those curves and had to have it. This particular European cabinet was made by Socodimex in Paris. I’ve only ever seen pictures of one before now

That Lunar Lander? A herculean effort was made to try to get it down. There was no easy way to do it. The floor was totally rotten, and any stairwell access had long since gone. Various efforts were made to save it using scaffolding, a makeshift jig – even brute force was considered. In the end, it just had to be left up there and stripped for parts.

36368739274_c6ec95a294_z — We only risked one man at a time up there. Here’s Jol stripping the Lunar Lander for parts

37063477491_d4e0df7b48_z — Here’s one of the aborted attempts to get it down. Didn’t work out

36391493573_daf5b54cbe_z — The clock was ticking, so in the end a decision had to be made. Lunar Lander parts

36807916610_93308431c4_z — Lunar Lander control panel. That thruster controller is a thing of rare beauty

36983065076_9f061c5032_z — Atari Breakout: this came from the loft. It cleaned up really well

21551859_10154952913037654_6962441501554878050_o — This stunner is a Sega Space Ship, pictured back home after a clean. There were two, and we got them both out of the building. Very early vector game circa 1977

On reflection I think the find of the day was the Sega Jet Rocket. This stunning electro-mechanical flight simulator game was released by Sega in 1970. It was HUGE. We were lucky that the room it was in had a door which opened right out to the street. There wasn’t much holding the floor up, and our original thought was to leave the thing. But late in the day, Oliver grabbed us all, and said in no uncertain terms that we had come this far, and the right thing to do woud be to save it. I’m glad we did. Check it out:

37030568381_dcde986d30_z — The Sega Jet Rocket as found. Condition was not far from perfect!

37030569071_0e9ff4a001_z — Look at that great artwork

37030570161_9edc1ee447_z — It was incredibly heavy – it took four of us to get it out into the open

36983063796_0d77628ba6_z — Sega Jet Rocket. Think you’ll agree it was worth saving

Incredibly, we discovered once we got back that the Jet Rocket works!

So we did well. Considering the time we had there, and the condition of the place, the haul was significant:

36774933780_1e58bcc0ba_z — Just a small part of the haul from our French Arcade Raid

37000907402_9e544b3729_z — We attracted quite a bit of attention from the locals once things started coming out

36335914504_76abdbf78e_z — Loading up the Luton vans ready for the long journey home

36358304513_2dd7d60a2c_z — Nice haul of pinball playfields here

On reflection I think we all wish we had more time. Because of commitments back home and specific crossing times back to the UK, not to mention an eight-hour drive back to Calais, we simply had to grab what we could in the time we had available to us. Everything took an age to get out because of the condition of the building. To get to the good stuff, the crap had to be moved out of the way, and it all had to be done carefully. What we found at the site, wasn’t quite what was described, which didn’t help the mood – any expectations we had to be driving back to the UK with five full van loads, had to be quickly revised. It was clear as soon as we arrived that we had to be selective. Whatever we left either wasn’t worth taking, or simply could not be reached safely.

I want to thank the other guys for making this particular raid so memorable. We had a lot of laughs, and despite running on 3 hours sleep over two days, everyone I think came back with their own treasures and a great set of memories (we might have some speeding fines too, which may materialise in due course!). But everyone looked out for each other, and we came away with a good selection of classic arcade cabinets. It was a truly crazy weekend, and I hope these pictures do it justice.

This really was a one-of-a-kind Arcade Raid.

37063479951_10f6cf6cf2_z — Left to Right: Tim, Steve, Alex, Tony, Michael, Dave, Oliver and Steve. (Jol was up top, still stripping that Lunar Lander!)

Alex over at Nintendo Arcade has pulled together a montage video of the footage we took of the day. Do check it out below:

There were so many pictures from the day – I’ve shared everything I took on the day below in a slideshow gallery:

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French collector Florent Gorges pulled together a series of five videos documenting this raid, which are pretty cool. Non-French speakers can use the subtitle facility on these YouTube videos:

Here’s a list of some of the cabinets that we came across during the raid:

VIDEO GAMES:

Amusement Avec Jeutel, Battlezone, Blue Shark, Circus x 4 ( 1 converted to space invaders), Crazy Kong, Demolition Derby, Dodgem, Galakatron x2 , Galaxian, Gee Bee, Getaway, Grand Crash x2, Gran Trak, Gunfight x2, Head On, Head On (different version), Lunar Lander, M4 x2, Moto Cross, Playtime, Ric-o-chet, Safari, Sky Invaders, Space Invader, Space Invaders, Space X (cocktail table), Speak and Rescue, Special Duel (cocktail table), Spaceship x2, Steeplechase, Stop and Go, Super Road Champions, Taskete, UFO (cocktail table), Thunder Blade, Video Flipper, Video Pinball x2.

ELECTROMECHANICAL GAMES:

Jet Rocket, Knock Out, Supershifter.

PINBALL:

Freedom, Volcano, Alien Poker, Cavalier, Hot Tip, Diamond Lady, Crazy Race, Jet Spin, Disco Fever, Lost World, Six Million Dollar Man, Getaway, Mr Evil x2, Phoenix x2.

Thanks to Dan Mahiney for pulling that list together.

And thank you for reading this week. I’d appreciate it if you could share this article on your social media channels using the links below. More to come as always, but you can read about past arcade raids in the archives at the top of this page.

See you next week.

Tony